Laser warning systems are generally required to alarm when subjected to laser illumination and to estimate the direction from which the laser illumination is received, for example to locate the source of the transmission. Existing systems use relatively large sensors to achieve the necessary sensitivity to detect the laser in situations involving beam scatter and other forms of indirect illumination, under which the received laser signal power is reduced. In the case of direct laser illumination, however, laser speckle can cause these systems to generate unacceptably large errors in the estimated direction due to the resulting non-uniform illumination.